Critic Reviews

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93

PGNx Media

The Def Jam gang returns in a more mature-themed game. I will admit that I love the AKI wrestling engine. The WWE (then WWF) games that it powered on the Nintendo 64 were incredible. Similarly, I enjoyed much last year’s Def Jam Vendetta as it merged an excellent grappling engine, with EA-budget production values. Def Jam: Fight for NY is more of everything. The game has more moves, more characters and more story.

Overall, Fight for NY is a great fighting game. It's got style, it's got pizzaz, and it has Henry Rollins. It's extremely fun in both single and multiplayer modes (up to 4 players simultaneously), and is well worth a purchase by anyone who likes fighting games.

Reviewing a fighting game is like talking to an old friend; the conversation might be new, but the words don't seem all that different.Def Jam Fight For NY is like meeting a new friend. It's not a fighting game, a wrestler, a kick boxer or any other single fighting genre you can think of – it's all of them rolled into one.

Def Jam returns with a new fighting title. This time around the developers have taken the fight out of the ring and into the crowd. Def Jam Fight For NY has been unleashed onto the Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox and Sony Playstation 2 systems. And I must say that this latest title in the new Def Jam fighting series is pretty awesome. Electronic Arts did the impossible with the last title. They had a deal with WCW to make games. And the few games they made on the Xbox and Playstation pretty much sucked. ECW and WCW died a horrible death and now Vince McMahon has monopolized the wrestling world (I sure do miss ECW). So EA went on and still made a wrestling game with no official wrestling license. They instead used Hip-Hop and R&B artists to fill in the large gap. It actually paid off in the end. And this second game in the series is pretty damn awesome.

Where have you gone, Chuck D? To the rest home, probably, and no one seems to mind anyway. Rap music used to mean more than this, but all art ends up getting turned into product, and as products go, this is a good one.

Don’t get me wrong, Fight For New York is far and away a marked improvement over Vendetta. Wrestling, fight and hip hop fans will find this game will occupy them for quite some time. A larger story line, greater number of options and plenty of interactive environments make this title one for any fight fans. It may not completely live up to its design, but it more than makes up for it in style.

Fighting games -- even great fighting games -- have a habit of doing very little with their sequels. Usually a couple of new arenas are added, one or two new fighters thrown in for good measure, and a few costumes slipped onto beloved characters to make them seem new or different. Maybe there's one gameplay wrinkle added to make the update appear worthwhile, but overall, fighting game sequels tend to be highly derivative. Not so with Def Jam: Fight for NY, sequel to last year's Vendetta. EA has added a robust cast of characters, arenas, and an awesome Story Mode along with turning Def Jam from a strict wrestler into a true brawler. A lot has been done and the sequel is much better for it. If you liked the first, you'll love Fight for NY.

It's not often you encounter an entirely new kind of game. Usually there's only just a few each year, while everything else fiddles around inside an established genre. In 2004, Katamari Damacy is one of them. Def Jam: Fight for NY is another. That's putting either game in pretty strange company, but Katamari's a new kind of action game, and this year's Def Jam is a new kind of fighting game. Others have pushed in this direction in the past, but Fight for NY is the first to get it right.

I'll say it again: whoever at EA came up with the idea to make a wrestling game starring some of hip-hop's most flamboyant personalities must have been crazy. Apparently, however, the idea was just crazy enough to work. Now in its second iteration, the Def Jam wrestling games continue to defy logic. Given how well received its predecessor was, it's not really surprising that Def Jam: Fight for NY turned out as well as it did. What is surprising, however, is just how much more was packed into this sequel. EA didn't settle for a half-assed roster update. What we have here is a game that is substantially more robust than its predecessor in pretty much every conceivable way, and not to mention a game that is as fun as all hell in its own right.

When hip hop first hit the music scene, it was a rebellious movement as well as a new art form. Gradually it became more self-conscious, attacking social and political issues with an urban punk rock fury. From there things got paranoid and violent; hip hop became a window into the thug lifestyle. After two of the genre’s most dynamic artists were murdered, greed and vanity took over, and rap’s soul was sold in favor of some nice ice and a Cadillac.

Overall, it's a surprisingly great package for a game based round a record label and should be regarded as a solid fighter in its own right. It's not going to appeal to beat 'em up fans that live for combos, but for everyone else it's a solid and enjoyable fighting game, which should provide you with hours of fun.